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"So What Happens in Church, Anyway?"
September 9, 2001 Rev. Gary LeTourneau
A little over 50 years ago, a Philadelphia inner city congregation watched as three nine-year-old boys were baptized and received into the membership of the church. The church was in a tough situation. Not long after those three nine-year-old boys joined the church, unable to continue with its dwindling membership, the church sold the building and disbanded. Some 40 years later, one of those boys was doing research at the archives of his denomination and decided to look up the church report for his church from 40 years ago, the year that he was baptized. He says that as he read the records, "There was my name. And then there was Dick White's." And he remembered that Dick White was now a missionary. And then there was Bert Newman, now a professor of theology at an African seminary. "And then I read the report for my year: Three baptisms, and then this statement:
One who became a missionary, one a professor of theology, the third (and the author of this) is Doctor Tony Campolo, the Christian sociologist, and author, and speaker who's had such a tremendous impact this last 20 years in the Christian life. I think what he's getting at in sharing that anecdote is precisely what Jesus was getting at. When people asked Jesus, "If you are really the Messiah, and the Kingdom of God is being inaugurated with your presence, where's the evidence? Why isn't there something incredible happening? Why do we still have the Romans as our rulers? Where's the army? Where are the trumpets? Where are the angels? What's going on in the Kingdom, anyway? All we see is a little band of disciples and an occasional miracle."
Jesus responded by telling a story--the parable of the mustard seed and the yeast. I want to be sure you notice something that Luke, especially, is always very careful to do. He remembers that Jesus told stories about what men did--they planted in the field. And He followed it with a story about what women did--they made bread in the kitchen. Because the Kingdom is for everybody, and Luke wants to make sure we remember that men and women are agents of the Kingdom.
When you wanted to talk about something in ancient Israel that was tiny, you talked about a mustard seed. Not because it was the tiniest thing they had, but it was very small--if you've ever seen a mustard seed, they're tiny. In just one growing season, they would grow into a bush, sometimes nine feet high. A big, full bush--just like that! And Jesus said, "If you want to know what the Kingdom's like, then think about a mustard seed in the ground. When you come back the next day has anything happened? Not that you can see. (This, incidentally, is why I make a terrible farmer and gardener. I find it impossible to resist the temptation to see if the zucchini seeds are germinating or not. I just have to poke at them! I'm not patient enough, but farmers are. So it works for them.) When you look, do you see anything? No. Does a farmer even have to do anything? No. He can take a nap. He can rest. As long as there's sunshine and as long as there's rain, that mustard seed's going to grow. Jesus calls it a tree. That might be an exaggeration. It's a big bush.
And then think about making bread, says Jesus. A woman mixes some yeast with three measures of flour. Now, a couple of things about that. They kept active yeast culture growing just like we do when we make sourdough pancakes. They kept some starter around. And when you made a new batch of bread, you put everything in and then you mixed in the starter (and that had the yeast) and it would ferment and bubble. (I'm a lousy baker because I hate waiting for bread to rise. If you could make it and throw it in the oven, I would be fine, but I just don't like waiting!) Well, when you make bread, you wait. The quantity of bread--it says "three measures." We might miss the significance of what Jesus is saying there. A "measure" isn't a cup. She's not mixing yeast with three cups of flour. It would be equivalent to about 50 pounds of flour! She's making a lot of bread--enough to feed 150 people. A little bit of yeast, 50 pounds of flour, the rest of the ingredients. And that little bit of yeast works through all of the dough--almost as if by magic--and turns it all into wonderful bread.
"If you want to know what the Kingdom is like," says Jesus, "think about a mustard seed. Think about yeast working through dough." And what would His point have been? Well, first of all, that what happens in the Kingdom happens with a great deal of subtlety--almost invisibility to any particular observation. You'd look and say, "Well, there's nothing happening here." You go out in a corn field on any given day and look around, you'd think, "There's not anything happening here." But there is. It's growing. It's becoming alive.
Secondly, Jesus would say about the Kingdom, "Don't mistake the fact that great things in God's Kingdom begin with very small beginnings--just a little bit of yeast, just a mustard seed."
Finally, of course, there's the message for me: Learn to be patient. Don't expect to see it all happen at once. It doesn't work that way out in your fields. It doesn't work that way in your kitchen. It really doesn't work that way in the Kingdom of God. You've got to be patient if you want to see the whole effect.
Think of how that church might wish to revise its history of the year they accepted those three boys as members.
Now, there are some applications for me, and I think for you. If it's true that what happens in the Kingdom of God happens without a lot of splash, and without a lot of sizzle, and God makes it happen, and at any time we may not see results of the process of growth. First application to me: Don't be too hung up about responsibility for results. The results are in God's hands. Does the farmer, once he's placed the mustard seed in the ground, have anything to do with what that seed does from there? No. If there's sun, and if there's rain, God has built the seed so that it grows, and there's nothing any farmer can do to make a seed grow. None of us know how. It's a process of life. Is there anything that a woman in her kitchen can do to make the yeast work? Yeast was almost magic for them. She can go take a nap, she can rest, she could cook dinner, she can do anything she wants, and the yeast will be fermenting and bubbling. God is responsible for results. Our responsibility is to, in obedience and faithful trust, in response to God's work in our lives, take the small, practical steps that we are capable of, and then trust God with what happens.
I'm taking as my motto, my symbol for this year, a man named Jeff Louis, an Army Specialist who last year, as part of his duties with the 82nd Airborne Division, jumped out of the door of an airplane on his first parachute jump. The only thing is that Army Specialist Jeff Louis wasn't in the 82nd Airborne Division as a parachute jumper. He was a supply clerk! And they think that it was the result of a clerical error that he received the order one morning to report to the airfield for his first jump! He had never been trained. They never told him what to do in an emergency. They never told him what to do when he landed. But he did it. And he landed unhurt! He said he was just doing what a good soldier is supposed to do when he made the jump: Follow orders. "The Army said I was 'airborne-qualified.' I wasn't going to question it."
What are you and I qualified for? Are you and I "gospel-qualified"? Have we received the seed? Is the yeast there and working? Then the God of the universe says you have all you need to take the next simple, small step of discipleship, or service, and growth. And even if you don't understand the overall objective or plan, and even if maybe you've had a disagreement with some of the people involved. Maybe if you feel like those fourth-graders, or those seventh-grade boys are really intimidating, "I'm not sure I know enough or I'm loving enough to be there"--if you've got that seed, then you're "gospel-qualified" to be a soldier of Jesus Christ. And it's our job just to say, "Yes," to trust God, trust His commands, trust His timing, trust His guidance, and do what we can--and let God be responsible for the results. That's the first application for me.
Second application: If it's true that God is responsible for the outcome and for making the Kingdom grow, then I don't have to be nearly as concerned about mistakes. And we don't have to be nearly as concerned about the mistakes we make. Because God's in charge of the process and He says He'll bring it to completion. You and me--our job is to try. And because we're human, and because we're sinful, and because we're part of a human organization, we'll make some mistakes. But it's OK, because God's in charge of the outcome.
A great example of an organization making a mistake: (I've been saving this for a year, waiting for the right sermon to use it in--it's so good!) Last October two passengers arrived for check-in in Philadelphia for a six-hour U. S. Airways flight to Seattle with what they called their "therapeutic companion pet"--a pig. They pointed out that just like a seeing-eye dog, they were entitled by federal law to bring their "therapeutic companion pet" with them on the flight. So their pig was permitted to sit with them in the first-class cabin of the plane. (I'm not making this up! This was in the news last year.) Passengers described the 300-pound pig as "enormous," "brown," "angry," and "honking." He was seated in three seats near the front of the plane with his companions, but the attendants reportedly had difficulty strapping him in. Wouldn't you love to have a video of that happening? They said [the attendants], "It became restless after take-off and sauntered through the first-class cabin." One passenger reported, "He kept rubbing his nose on people's legs, trying to get them to give him food and stroke him." Upon landing, things only got worse. The pig panicked and began running up and down the coach class, squealing. Many passengers, also screaming, stood on their seats to get away from it. [Can you imagine this?] It took four attendants to escort the pig out of the airplane, and he escaped upon reaching the terminal, where he was later recaptured.
Here's what I like: When asked to comment on the story, U. S. Airways spokesman David Castleveter said, "We can confirm that the pig traveled, and we can confirm it will never happen again."
They made a mistake. We all make mistakes. They made it with good intentions. Some of ours are with good intentions. It didn't stop U. S. Airways from flying. They dealt with it. They made a new policy. They're moving on as an organization.
How often in the body of Christ, when we come across the mistakes of leaders, the session, the people, do we let it bring us all to a crashing halt. And what's really ironic is U. S. Airways doesn't know a thing (as an organization) about the grace of God in Jesus Christ and forgiveness from Jesus Christ, and the forgiveness we're supposed to extend to one another. But we have that here. So we don't have to be afraid of trying. We'll make mistakes. People are going to make mistakes. Let's deal with them as mistakes and move on, because God's got great things to do in that outpost of the Kingdom of God called Faith Presbyterian Church.
Finally, my hunch is that every single one of us--beginning with me and extending to every one of you--in whatever ministry, or service, or involvement in the church you have. Every single one of us will underestimate the power and significance of simple acts of obedience. God's got a tree to grow, and He's going to grow it with our obedience. We're going to think, "All I'm doing is teaching some nine-year-olds a Sunday School class." And not know that we're producing future missionaries, and theology professors, and Christian speakers and authors.
Again, an example from the news. (I'm getting all these stories out of the way right at the beginning of the year!) Last year A. R. Connor, 78-years-old, with his bulldozer was clearing some brush and trees into a pile around the Bartow, Florida city airport. After he got all the brush in a pile, he threw some kerosene on it, set it on fire to burn it off, and walked off to get a drink of water. Then came the explosion, as a two-foot long, World War II-era rocket blasted out of the fire and crashed into a chain link fence, 700 feet away! He had no idea it was there. During World War II, the airport had been used as a staging ground for the Airforce, and they think probably some munitions were dumped and forgotten about, and he had somehow scraped one up with his bulldozer and put it in that pile and ignited it. He said about it, "It sounded like dynamite. It exploded, hit the fence, dropped down, and set the grass on fire."
I was thinking, "He thought he was coming to work just to clear some brush, and set it on fire, and take a break." He didn't know he was going to set off rockets that day. You and I come to church and we think, "All we're doing today is making coffee for fellowship hour." "All I'm doing is being an usher and handing out bulletins and welcoming people in the name of Jesus Christ." "All I'm doing is teaching the four-year-olds Sunday School class." "All I'm doing doing is coming to an Adult Nurture class." "All I'm doing . . ."--and we have no idea what God's going to do with our little effort. He's got a Kingdom to build. And He said, "Don't make any mistake: Even if at any given point in time you look around and think, "There's not much happening here," God says, "I'm in charge, and I know what yeast does, and I know what seeds do, and I know what my gospel does. And it's going to happen."
Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, today for the power of the gospel. Thank you that we have great confidence that in your sovereign love and plan for us that as an outpost of the Kingdom, you're building Faith Church into a great church and you're building your Kingdom into a great Kingdom. We have no idea what that end result may be. I pray today for any who may not be sure they're "gospel-qualified." Maybe they don't know what it means to have a relationship with you. And I pray that this might be the beginning of a great year as they turn to you, and invite you to become the God who takes small things and makes them great, and invite you to live in their hearts and begin that process there. Then for all of us, I pray that we can be faithful, that we can be patient, that we can be obedient, that we can look for the opportunities to serve, and trust you for the results. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Rev. Gary LeTourneau Senior Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota
[transcribed from an audiotape of the 9:00 a.m. worship service on September 9, 2001] |
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